rejection as opportunity

You know the drill: you pour your heart onto the page, revise endlessly, then send it out (like, here’s my heart, do you like it?), wait and wait… then your work is turned down. You crank loud music and eat ice cream while mentally beating yourself up, telling yourself you’re totally deluded to think you can write and you should give up and learn plumbing.

Do NOT listen to that voice! Have your little pity party, then put away the ice cream. It’s time to get back out there. 

Continuing to submit can feel silly when we’ve been told no over and over. But I’d argue it’s delightfully audacious — it’s saying yes to ourselves and our work. 

And we can learn and grow from rejection. Hearing no is an opportunity to revisit the page, potentially with new eyes. 

In each episode of the podcast First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing, Mitzi Rapkin asks writers how they deal with rejection. The answers vary from “doesn’t bother me much” to “it completely destroys me.” But Rebecca Makkai said she finds it illuminating. She said rejection helps her look at her work more objectively and understand how to make it better. How her stories that were accepted quickly are her least favorite. 

It’s a helpful reframing. We can get so caught up on wanting it, we lose sight on how publication isn’t the ultimate goal — or, at least it’s not for me. I want to publish my work, yes, but I want to publish writing I’m proud of. Rejection has stopped me from publishing stories that could be better and given me the chance to reassess. 

Getting a slew of rejections prompted me to completely overhaul and rewrite my novel. And it’s so much better now that it’s hard not to be grateful for all the nos. 

I knew rejection was an inevitable part of being a writer, but I’m realizing it’s also an opportunity to make sure we’re not simply publishing, but publishing our best work. It’s an invitation to go back to the page and cut those expository lines that are weighing down the narrative. To realize how we didn’t make this part as clear as it needs to be. We can do another revision. And then, with delightful audacity, we send it out again. 

Reading Recommendations

Online: Anna Sims wrote about state bills that are limiting what teachers can say in their classrooms for Dame, Teachers Play an Important Role in the History of Witch Hunts, which is an important (and terrifying) read. 

Angela Boyd launched her incredible Substack, Literary Citizen, which is a very smart and compelling examination of literature and current events.

Books: 

Recently read:  Fatimah Asghar’s debut novel, When We Were Sisters, is breathtaking. The prose is gorgeous and the story is heart-breaking but beautiful. 

Currently reading: I just started Prince Shakur’s memoir When They Tell You to Be Good and so far it is indeed good.

Up next: Sinking Bell by Bojan Louis. 

Preorder alert: Speaking of Rebecca Makkai, her new novel is available for preorder!

And I’m also adding a listening recommendation because my talented friend Jennifer Solheim’s old band Minim recently released its 2001 album, Playing the Body, digitally for the first time!

Keep going. Keep throwing yourself out there. You’ve got this. <3